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The Commuter

“A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.”

Typically, I’d never condescend to ignoring my gut on films that look to fill the void of cravings for mindless entertainment, but seeing The Commuter among a list of promising films on The Film Stage‘s list of bests for 2018, I made an exception. And, as expected, I was right. A mindless fiasco of entertainment tropes with minimal moments of meaningful didactic opportunity: a film that demands the audience enjoy their usual comatose state of existence, ready to accept the conditions of unconditional surrender.

The Commute is a poor man’s version of an admixture of the original Murder on the Orient Express and The Talking of Pelham 123, with a swiss cheese narrative that could exhaust any patient writer’s capacity to explain the myriad of storyline potholes that infest this mindless burning Michael Bay spoof. I will not take the time, having already wasted it on the film, to go into the details. I will say that after the film hits puberty in the first 25 minutes, it quickly becomes a burden to enjoy.